Symbolic computation of hypergeometric type and non-holonomic power series

Abstract: A term $a_n$ is $m$-fold hypergeometric, for a given positive integer $m$, if the ratio $a_{n+m}/a_n$ is a rational function over a field $K$ of characteristic zero. We establish the structure of holonomic recurrence equation, i.e. linear and homogeneous recurrence equations having polynomial coefficients, that have $m$-fold hypergeometric term solutions over $K$, for any positive integer $m$. Consequently, we describe an algorithm, say $mfoldHyper$, that extends van Hoeij's algorithm (1998) which computes a basis of the subspace of hypergeometric $(m=1)$ term solutions of holonomic recurrence equations to the more general case of $m$-fold hypergeometric terms. We generalize the concept of hypergeometric type power series introduced by Koepf (1992), by considering linear combinations of Laurent-Puiseux series whose coefficients are $m$-fold hypergeometric terms. Thus thanks to $mfoldHyper$, we deduce a complete procedure to compute these power series; indeed, it turns out that every linear combination of power series with $m$-fold hypergeometric term coefficients, for finitely many values of $m$, is detected. On the other hand, we investigate an algorithm to represent power series of non-holonomic functions. The algorithm follows the same steps of Koepf's algorithm, but instead of seeking holonomic differential equations, quadratic differential equations are computed and the Cauchy product rule is used to deduce recurrence equations for the power series coefficients. This algorithm defines a normal function that yields together with enough initial values normal forms for many power series of non-holonomic functions. Therefore, non-trivial identities are automatically proved using this approach. This paper is accompanied by implementations in the Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) Maxima 5.44.0 and Maple 2019.